Demon Blood: So Strange
by Dotskip317
Summary: Demon blood is more a concept than anything else, so when a fellow mutant tells Kurt that he has it he thinks she's referring to his odd appearance. Until the demon who stole her sister's body dimension-hops into their backyard. Then, things get strange.
1. Prologue

_This is part one of a three-sectioned story, "Demon Blood", but don't worry about that right now. Just read and enjoy.  
I in no way own or claim to posses the right to any of the X-men:Evolution characters, only the writing itself._

**

* * *

Demon Blood: So Strange**

Chapter One -- Prologue

They are  
We are  
So strange.

So much raw emotion  
With nowhere to go but out  
And up  
And yet  
All they can think to do is destroy it  
Smother it  
Snuff it out because it is a threat to  
Humanity.

And it's not like I can help  
What I look like  
What I am  
What they see.

That last one's the most important.

Because if they see me  
As what I am  
They don't care what I look like.

And if they see me  
As what I look like  
They don't care what I am.

I have demon blood  
It skips through my veins  
And tickles my arteries  
And I  
Am  
Human.

And I  
Am  
Sorry.

* * *

_I wanted to start this out right, so I picked up on some free-verse and made it happen. All later chapters will solely be in prose.  
Please, read on._


	2. Splitvision

_I in no way own or claim to posses the rights to any of the X-men:Evolution characters, only the writing itself and my characters, Lucy, Carson, and Sigma._

"Talking."

_Thinking._

**"Cason talking through Lucy."**

**Carson in Lucy's head.**

_Vorbind / Gânduri în limba română. (Speaking / Thinking in Romanian) -- English translations at the bottom of the page._

* * *

**Demon Blood: So strange**

Chapter Two -- Splitvision

Lucy lay back on the cold metal table of the medical bay she had found herself in when she first came to. The hands on either side of her face were cold, and she resisted the urge to push the man away, despite the innocent nature of his touch. She didn't particularly want him in her head, but he was trying to help and after he had gone to all the trouble of getting her inside, clean, and having someone set and cast her arm she figured she owed him at least a little explanation.

And because she and Carson always ended up arguing whenever they tried to tell a story from their collective past, it seemed easiest to let him see for himself.

She just hadn't realized that involved mind probing until he settled behind her and asked her to lean back her head.

**Oh well.** Carson thought, her unspoken words heard plainly in her sister's head. **No turning back now.**

_True that._

-----

The sky was red.

That was the first thing.

Red sky, orange clouds, landscape blackened beyond recovery.

Sigma watched from the dark, brimstone smoke clogging the air as two girls fended off the small army of helper demons he had sent ahead of him into their world. They were doing a rather good job too.

_Interesting._

He smiled as much as a formless cloud of smog can smile and spiraled lower to the lifeless ground. It had taken more energy than he liked to use on any one endeavor to create the blast that had drawn these two out of the relative safety of the nearby city, but if he was correct in his prediction of their identities it would be well worth it. A flash of silver metal drew his attention to the girl closest to the center of the brawl.

_Ah. Intriguing fighting style. She uses her body as a weapon just as much as she employs that fancy, oversized, butcher knife of hers. She must be the one. But the other… I could have sworn it was meant to be HER._

Sigma blew past the girl nearer to the edge, whose movements only barely kept pace with those of the hellspawn surrounding her. But it was enough. Every strike; countered. Every hit; blocked. Every blast fired; taken down before it got within a foot of its target. Nothing could touch her. No weaponry necessary and she hadn't even broken a sweat. Each step and kick and punch perfectly timed and carried from the last, as opposed to the erratic, juggernaut slamming-headfirst-into-her-opponent-to-disarm-them thing her counterpart was riding on.

Carson launched herself off one of the should-have-been trees and landed her broadsword squarely between the ears of the last Helper, watching in satisfaction as it screamed with two halves of what used to be one mouth and its soot-grey blood flowed out of its head to join the multicolored puddles of gore already dampening the ground. Lucy picked her way around the bodies to join her sister in the middle of the battlefield. She placed a hand on the brown-haired, crimson-gazed girl next to her. "Carson."

"Yeah yeah, I didn't have to kill all of them, I know." The broadsword in her hands disappeared in a dull gold spark of light and she wiped the blood splatter off her face, grinning. "I was just getting into the swing of things is all. And I-"

"And you had to protect me." Lucy rolled her eyes and sheathed the dagger she was carrying in her belt. "I've heard that excuse before."

Carson laughed, her eyes sparking and reflecting the hellfire in the sky above them. "It's not as true anymore is it?"

"Not since you started letting me train with you."

"See? I'm good for something after all."

Lucy smiled at her sister's words. Carson liked doing that. Pretending she didn't know how perfect her powers were for her personality, or how well she had mastered them. It was what she did whenever they had to fight someone or- Lucy glanced at the inhuman carnage around them- someTHING. It helped her focus, and took her mind off the fact that her sister was not in any way invincible, unlike Carson herself.

"Besides," Carson hooked an elbow around her sister's neck and pulled her into a one-armed hug. "I've still gotta look out for my little sister!"

Lucy shook her head, grinning, and her dark, rust-red bangs escaped the confines of her headband to fall into her carnelian orange eyes. "We're _twins_ you dork!"

"And I'm the oldest!"

"By ten minutes!"

"Still the oldest!"

Lucy laughed, knowing there was no winning this argument. They had had it countless times before, although this would been the first time they had it while surrounded by dead bodies. Speaking of which… "Come on Carse, we'd better get going. Won't be long before the police show up demanding an explanation that we can't give."

Carson chuckled and shoved Lucy away playfully, striding across the deadened land without a thought for the shredded demon-innards she was most likely trampling. "Good call. Where did these things come from anyway?"

"No freaking clue."

"And there's my cue!"

Lucy shot her sister an exasperated look. "Sis, we've been here for three hours. It's a little late for an entrance."

Carson just stared at her, confused. "I didn't say anything."

"Then who-"

"TADAA!!!" a swath of thick black smoke blanketed the girls, making them cough and gag for breath. Sigma grinned and tutted softly. "Now really, what kind of a response is that?"

Carson, ever the spaz, chose to ignore the fact that they had NO IDEA what was talking to them. "It's the CHOKING kind of response you jerk! Turn off the fog machine so we can breathe already!"

"Carson!" Lucy said sharply, trying to keep her twin's sharp tongue in check.

Sigma chuckled and the smog cleared, leaving a towering, deep-space-black dragon-looking thing towering over them, its tail curled lazily around the two girls below it. "Now aren't you a fast one. Pity I'll have to edit that out, I could use the banter every now and again. Helpers are so dull in that regard."

Carson pulled a long, two-pronged meat fork out of nowhere and poked at the tail. "What the hell are you? Are you made of smoke? Shadows?"

Lucy glared at her. "What the hell, Carson. What. The hell."

"You are both correct!" he trumpeted, much to their confusion. "I am smoke, shadows, and the hell! And you, my sweet, are coming with me." He reached down and snagged Carson between his claw-like digets and the air of surrealistic comedy vanished. Carson instantly shifted back into battle mode, unsheathing a rapier from inside her left arm and bringing it across and down in one swift movement that severed the fingers at the knuckle and dropped her twenty feet to the ground. She hopped back up without hesitation and with not a scratch to be seen and darted forward, Lucy following and balancing out her moves, their combined attack startling the large demon momentarily and giving them the impression that they had the upper hand-

Until Sigma's tail whipped Carson out of the air in mid-leap and his right hand closed around Lucy's upper torso, slamming her into the rock-covered ground below. Lucy blinked, the sky suddenly blurry. Her ears were ringing. "LUCY!!" Carson was calling her name from somewhere nearby.

"'s alrigh'. 'm fine…" She mumbled. Her sister's eyes burned and she flung herself at the demon, hacking a chunk off of his right shoulder with a katana and embedding several ninja stars in his chest before he smacked her down into the dust again.

She was screaming now, her overriding instinct to PROTECT erasing all semblance of the pain caused by the impact from her body. "Let her go!"

Lucy crashed into an outcropping of rocks some thirty meters away and was lying face down in the dirt before she even realized he had left the dragon-thing's hand. "Tri-pp-ee…" she stuttered, her mind deciding to go AWOL and let the rest of her body light fireworks in her nervous system. Sigma scooped her back up and they repeated the process several times, each attack by Carson leading to Lucy ending up somewhere on the blackened ground ten-to-fifty yards away from where she started.

Sigma plucked her from the blood-covered earth and set the tips of his claws to either side of her windpipe. "It's a pity, I hate to waste such perfectly good energy. But then again, I suppose if your sister keeps this up there's really no helping it…"

"NO!" all the weaponry Carson had produced vanished and she launched herself at him, barehanded.

The demon's grip tightened and Lucy felt herself flicker. "You- will… let g- g-" she tried to get out a lie. To convince him to drop her and leave in as few words as possible. Her head was cloudy. It was hard to speak and there was no power behind her words. Sigma smiled as gently as a dragon could.

"No. Stop- just- please…" Carson was crying, but her sister realized it too late to trick her back into that insane, insatiable anger that had gotten them this far. "I'll do whatever you want, just let her go."

Something warm and wet dripped down into Lucy's eyes from her hairline, obscuring the red-eyed girl from her vision. "Carson, I'm fine. I'm fine, see? You need to keep fighting. Don't worry about me. I'm fine." No power there either. Her fogged over mind was disrupting the feed.

Her sister's choked voice tingled her hyper-sensitive eardrums. "Lu- Lucy you're bleeding. I can't let him hurt you."

"He won't."

"_Mincinos__.(1)_" Carson choked out, the Romanian word tripping off the tip of her tongue.

"_El nu va durea-mă, soră.(2)_ He won't hurt me."

The demon with his fingers curled around her neck laughed, amused by the sisters' contradictory conversation. "My dear, I'm afraid you are incorrect. I have every intention of ripping your soul out of your body and using it for a flashlight once I'm finished placing your lovely sister under my control, I make no illusions about that."

"Why?" she whispered, close to blacking out from the strain on her body.

"Because, my sweet," he struck out lightning-quick with his tail and ran Carson through her forehead. "Your sister has something I want."

Lucy was dimly aware of a light being dispelled from her sister's body when everything faded to black.

--

Lucy sat up and rubbed her head, a sick, dizzy feeling rushing through her every time she moved. She looked around at the dead landscape and wondered where the hell all the bodies had gone. And Carson-

Oh shit.

_Carson._

"**Aw man, what hit me?"** Hearing her sister's voice, Lucy spun around too quickly and landed hard on her rear. **"Ow!"**

"Carson! Where are you?"

"**Where am I? Where are **_**you**_**?! I hear you but I can't see you!"**

"Same here! I-" she struggled to stand, only to immediately fall over again. "-am landing on my face. Ow."

Carson frowned. **"What are you talking about? That was-"** she stiffened and looked down at herself for the first time, Lucy's head making the movement instead of her own. **"-**_**me**_**."** She finished quietly. **Oh shit.**

_My thoughts exactly._ Lucy replied without speaking.

-----

Professor Xavier withdrew his hands from the girl's temples, sitting back in his chair and regarding her silently. _Such a strange case._ "Thank you, child. That was most enlightening."

"**By which you mean that you can now see why this girl is just a hair more freakish than the ones you're used to dealing with."**

"Shush, Carson." Lucy chided, turning her attention back to the man in the wheelchair. "We appreciate your concern-"

"**I don't."**

"-But I think we would both prefer if you would stay out of our heads from now on. It's bad enough having one extra person in there all the time. I, for one, do not need two."

Carson grinned. **"Aw, you know you love me."**

"Love you, hate you, same thing."

She laughed lightly, obviously used to this conversation, then addressed the Professor.** "Thanks for helping us out and everything, but we really need to get going soon. We've had an angry mob chasing us since Brightsdale and I would hate to see them show up on your doorstep demanding our release into their-"** she cleared her throat and readied her air quotes.** "'Tender loving care.'"**

The man folded his hands and brought them up in front of his mouth, indicating that he was pondering her words. "I see. And Lucy?"

"I'm with Carson on this one. We wouldn't want you to get hurt." She sat up on the bed she had woken up on and swung her legs over the side, gingerly stepping down onto the cold tile floor. "Besides, if we leave now we can probably get the jump on them and be out of the state by sundown."

Xavier shook his head, bringing his hands down to the controls of his chair. "They won't be following you anymore."

Carson's eyes lit up and she grinned deviously. **"Ooh, did you eat them? I'll bet you ate them. Or got one of your friends to eat them. You probably have a friend who ate them because they were hungry and then got sick because everyone knows angry mobs never sit well with mutants unless they eat them with **_**milk**_**."**

Lucy smacked a hand over her eyes. "Carson, do us both a favor and _shut up_."

He chuckled. "No, I took the liberty of altering their memories of you. They think you escaped and have gone home to their families, no harm done."

"**No harm, eh?"** Carson said incredulously, crossing her one free arm and going into 'overprotective sister' mode.

Lucy turned it into a defensive stance. "Come on, it's not that bad…"

Carson was having none of it.** "They **_**broke**_**. Your **_**arm**_**. And they tried to set you on fire! **_**Again!**_** Your pain receptors were all over the place!"**

Lucy glared at the ground. "I thought I told you to stop monitoring my vital signs!"

"**Girl, I'm in your head! It's what I do!"**

Professor Xavier watched them argue with interest. Every time one of them spoke Lucy's body and facial expressions shifted into their control. He would have suspected her of schizophrenia if not for the slight change in inflection whenever Carson was in control and the two distinct mental readings that the girl was emitting. It was as though someone had taken one of their minds and simply transferred it to the other's body without removing its previous inhabitant. It wasn't a split personality, it was two distinct people. And one of them was-

Well.

Distinct didn't quite cover it.

The body they had ended up in reminded him very much of that of a certain teleporter he had recently summond to the medical wing, asking him not to pop in on them as it might startle the two girls further. She gestured with gloved, four-fingered hands as they went at it as well as with her tail, which was tipped by a three-pronged, claw-like appendage as opposed to a flat spade like Kurt's. Her pointed ears were the same deep red as her skin and the two horns that protruded from either side of her head, countering the bright gold color her eyes glowed whenever Lucy was speaking. Whenever Carson took over, they shined deep crimson. Lucy hissed her forked tongue over her fangs as she sparred words with her sister, seemingly not bothered by the fact that she looked like the devil incarnate.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and her from her verbal duel. He smiled as the familiar thought patterns registered. "Come in, Kurt." Lucy/Carson spun away from the door and, moving faster than the eye could follow, darted behind the examining table and pulled her hood down over her face. She was putting as much space as she could between herself and the unknown. Because the unknown was bad. The unknown was usually trying to kill her or maim her or-

Or steal her sister's body and leave her soul behind to inhabit the nearest living thing in the middle of a desert where the equivalent of a small nuclear warhead had just wiped everything else out.

Yeah.

Lucy and Carson were not on good terms with the unknown.

A pale-skinned German boy walked in, catching sight of her and smiling slightly. She was still wearing the large hooded trench coat she had been hiding in for the past six years and he couldn't see her face, but the overzealous coverings reminded him of himself when he had first come to the institute. "You vanted to see me, Professor?" He asked, not taking his eyes from the girl's shadowed face.

"Yes. Lucy, Carson, this is Kurt Vagner. He's one of my students here at the institute. I called for him when I was under the impression that you would be staying with us for a while."

"**Cool. So now he can leave."**

"Carson, don't be rude."

"**Why not?"**

"'Cause it's not nice."

"**So? I'm not the nice one here, that's your job."**

"Um…" the girls turned their attention to the very confused boy in front of them. "Are you talking to yourself?"

"Uh, no. I'm actually-"

"**Yes I am! I'm insane and schizophrenic and you very much don't want me to be here so I'll be on my way now bye!"**

Carson started to move forward but Lucy stopped her in mid-stride. "Actually I'm talking to my sister. My homicidal, blade-crazy, won't-shove-it-even-if-it's-not-a-good-time-to-be-bringing-this-up twin sister. Who happens to be, y'know, _in my head_."

Kurt blinked at her. "Seriously?"

"**No, I'm lying, I really am crazy, and I'm just trying to gain your trust so I can murder you all with **_**forks**_** later tonight. Lucy, can we leave now? Please?"**

Lucy sighed and shook her head. "If they let us. I'd like to get out of here before you embarrass yourself further."

Carson grinned and Kurt caught the glint of fangs from under her hood. **"You mean before I embarrass **_**your**_**self any further."**

"Shut up, Carson."

The Professor cleared his throat to catch their attention. "Lucy, Carson, if you really wish to leave than it is quite within your rights to do so. However, I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider sticking around for a while. At least until your arm was better healed." The girl lifted her arm and looked at it as though she had never seen anything so fascinating before. "I had Ororo prepare a spare room for you when you first arrived in case you needed a place to stay. Kurt can show you there if you're willing to remain with us a few more days."

Lucy eyed the blue-haired boy curiously. Something about him wasn't quite right. His body didn't fit they way he held himself and there was a tickling in the back of her mind telling her that he was a _lie_. Which didn't make sense, because unless he was a figment of her imagination he couldn't be a lie, and even if she was imagining him then he was real enough in her mind that she could see him so he couldn't be a lie and trying to figure this out was giving her a headache.

**Maybe he's a lie because your brain is lying about him being a lie.** Carson put in oh-so-helpfully, sneaking the comment onto the tracks of Lucy's independent train of thought and nearly causing it to derail.

_Dammit Carson, quit doing that!_

**Why? It's fun!**

_Because every time you do it makes me look like someone just hit me in the stomach with a sledgehammer! It's freaking annoying! __Du-te puful ego-ul tău, vă smucitură!(3)_

Sure enough, Kurt had seen her silently jerk partway forward, as if something heavy had just landed in her midriff. He started forward and reached out to steady her. "Are you alright?"

"Hm? Maybe." She looked over at the Professor, who was watching their interactions with interest. "I'll stay for the night, just because I really need the sleep and I stopped trusting Carson to watch my back while I'm out about two years ago."

Carson pouted, barely hiding the grin that was threatening to make its way onto Lucy's features. **"Aw, are you still mad about that?"**

"_Yes._"

Carson laughed, knowing she was driving her sister crazy with her nonchalance. Really all she wanted was to get out of the room they were in, preferably to somewhere where she could see the outdoors and breathe clean air again. The oxygen she was breathing tasted processed on Lucy's hypersensitive tongue and Carson did not like it one bit. There was always something wrong when the air started to feel manufactured, and for all this 'Professor X's calming words Carson had learned to trust her sister's instincts, even when Lucy herself chose to ignore them. **"Fine, we can stay for one night, but after that I'm leaving, whether you want to or not."**

Lucy paused, processing that information. "…You're going to kidnap me."

"**Yes."**

"By just getting up while I'm asleep and walking away."

"**Yes."**

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Fantastic plan. Pure genius."

"**Hey, I'm still working on it!"**

Kurt laughed and Carson shot him a look, crimson gaze burning a hole in his forehead. He quickly stifled his giggles, worried that he had done something wrong, but then Lucy broke through and burst out laughing. Carson wasn't really indignant; this was just something she did to distinguish herself from her counterpart. Like when they argued about something that, in reality, they could not have agreed on more.

Kurt gave a nervous smile. _Mien Gott, she's confusing. But the 'nice' one, Lucy, she doesn't seem too bad. I vonder if she really is two people at once or if she's just playing the crazy card to get out ov here more qvickly._ "Do you vant me to show you around?" he asked, offering his hand to the still-cloaked figure. She hesitated, then took his bare hand in her gloved one and let her lead him toward the door.

"Before you go, I have one more thing to ask our guest…s." The pair paused in the doorway and Lucy looked back, her golden eyes meeting the Professor's without hesitation. "I believe I have a pretty good understanding of Carson's gifts from the memory you showed me, but I cannot seem to pinpoint yours, Lucy. Would you mind telling me what it is?"

Lucy smiled, pointed canines catching the light and throwing her innocent grin into a demonic shadow. "Don't worry about it. I've got things to keep that under control,"

She let Kurt tug her out the door, still beaming. There was something evasive about the way she phrased her answer, but he could tell that she was telling the truth and let them leave without pressing the matter. Lucy waited until the door closed behind them to let slip the rest of her sentence; the part about the more passive aspect of her powers. The words were barely audible as she exhaled.

"Just don't lie to me."

* * *

_Romanian-English translations._

_--(1)-- Mincinos = Liar_

_--(2)-- El nu va durea-mă, soră. = He will not hurt me, sister._

_--(3)-- Du-te puful ego-ul tău, vă smucitură! = Go fluff your ego, you jerk!_

_So yes, Carson has unbreakable skin and can spontaneously create anything that could possibly be used to stab-slash-cut a person from thin air. There will be more said about Lucy's power in the future. Here's looking forward to your reviews._

_--Dotskip_


	3. Wrong Kind of Angel

_I in no way own or claim the rights to any of the X-men: Evolution characters, only to the writing itself and to Lucy, Carson, and those one-dimensional thugs I throw in there every once in a while that don't really count as characters but I decided to stick in the disclaimer anyway._

"Talking."

_Thinking._

"Cason talking through Lucy."

_Vorbind / Gânduri în limba română. (Speaking / Thinking in Romanian)_

* * *

**Demon Blood: So Strange**

Chapter Three -- Wrong Kind of Angel

Kurt continued to lead Lucy around the house, and she chose to ignore that he was still holding her hand as they walked. She didn't mind. That twingy the-boy-is-a-lie feeling was still following her around, but Kurt himself felt harmless. Carson was still muttering quietly in the back of her head, but she was staying away from Lucy's thoughts for the most part and she wasn't using their mouth either so she wasn't complaining. "This is the main hallvay!" Kurt said with a wide, sweeping gesture to the room.

Lucy laughed at his dramatics. "You act like you own the place."

He jumped up onto the railing of the main staircase and spread his arms, grinning. "Vhat makes you think I don't?"

She laughed again and jumped onto the other railing, mimicking his movements. "You're weird, that's what."

"And you're not?"

"Oh no, I most definitely am. My weird is just a little more…" she hesitated, realizing the can of worms she was about to open up. "_Physical_ than yours."

He laughed out loud at that, surprising her, and reached for the clunky watch wrapped around his right wrist. "Sorry, I sometimes forget." He hopped down to the floor and pressed a button on the watch, the one that should have been the stopwatch on that particular model if Carson's mumblings were to be believed, and his image flickered before her eyes.

She stood stock still and gaped at him for a moment, taking in the blue fur and spaded tail, before impulse took over and she blurted out her thoughts. "I knew it! You _are_ a lie!"

He stepped back as she jumped down from the handrail and began circling him. "Vhat are you talking about?" he asked, confusion and hurt filtering into his voice. "I did not lie."

She waved him off and continued her inspection. His feet were shaped the same as hers, sans one toe, and his tri-fingered hands reminded her of her own from the second knuckle down. "No no, I know you didn't lie, I said you _are_ a lie. There's a difference. I could tell that the person I was seeing wasn't the real Kurt, I just couldn't place what was setting off the feeling." She moved forward quicker than he could respond and took his arm in her hands, inspecting the device that lent him his disguise. He stared in silence at the four-fingered hands that moved over his skin, barely touching the fur. "What is this thing?"

"It's my image inducer."

"Cool." She made to withdraw her hands, but he grabbed her uninjured arm to stop her.

She stiffened against his grasp but didn't pull away. Carson pulled toward the surface in case Lucy needed to bolt. "Please. I have shon you vhat I look like. Vill you do the same for me?"

Lucy reached up and undid the clasp that kept her coat secured around her neck, sliding it off and folding it carefully over one arm as though she wasn't being scrutinized by a blue angel. And he _was_ an angel.

The kind of angel she had grown up with. When her dad was out drinking. When her mom was crying in the kitchen and praying to the wrong kind of god, begging him to take away this burden on her conscience that had shown itself in the form of her youngest daughter. When Carson would come into their room tired and happy from a day of training with their father and playing with friends and would bring her books from the library in town that Lucy wasn't allowed into with the gothic illustrations and the black-hearted fairy tales. Those angels.

The ones that were all fangs and tails and darkness and saved the world without meaning to. The ones she drew in her notebooks at school that led her to be labeled as a freak before anyone even knew what she looked like. The angels that were meant to bring about redemption, not complacency. The ones that made people uncomfortable to talk about. The ones that looked, as far as her four-year-old mind had been concerned, more human than humans did.

Kurt was an angel.

And he was smiling. "You vill fit right in here! I'm sure ov it!"

Lucy laughed lightly, her heavy thoughts dispersing. "That's great, but weren't you supposed to be showing me my room?"

"_**Temporary**_** room!"** Carson insisted loudly before settling back down.

"Yes, Carson, I know."

"Ja! Come on, through here." He started off again, still pulling Lucy with him, and headed through the common area to the back stairs. It would be easier to get to her quarters from there. Suddenly Carson spotted something and twisted free from his grasp. "Vait, vhere are you going?"

Carson didn't respond, just walked over to the sleek black grand piano standing in the middle of the blocks of sunlight filtering in from the windows and sat down on the bench. She ran her hands gingerly over the keys and looked up at their very bewildered tour guide. **"May I?"**

"Um, sure. I don't see vhy not."

She nodded, her red eyes no longer burning. **"Thanks."** She touched the keys carefully. **"It's been a while though, so I'm sorry if I'm a little rusty." **Lucy's hands had suddenly never felt so awkward under her control. The lack of a pinkie finger wasn't really a problem Carson thought about on a daily basis, but it was an issue that became obvious to Kurt the instant the girl started playing. Her hands had to move twice as fast as their five-fingered counterparts would have needed to just to keep all the notes under control. But the music was beautiful. **"Rainsong. George Winston."** She offered, answering his unasked question. **"I never met the guy. Don't know how he would respond to Lucy, or mutants in general. Don't know what he was thinking or what he was feeling when he did this, and I doubt I ever will." **She breathed deeply and all but smiled. **"But the man made damn gorgeous music."**

--

"Carson!" The young girl ignored her sister and sped up slightly, trying desperately to lose her in the crowd, but Lucy's para-human agility enabled her to dodge through the crowd of students surrounding her and she ended up at her side, same as always. "You were supposed to wait for me you dork."

Carson snorted. "So? Obviously I don't need to."

Lucy's eyes flashed a hurt look but it was gone in an instant. "Nah, I just got lucky. Is Mom picking us up today or are we walking to practice?"

Terra, one of their classmates, waved at Carson from her car at the edge of the parking lot. She spotted the swaths of fabric that was Carson's twin walking with her and moved as if to leave without her, but Carson quickly shook her head and jerked her thumb to one side. _I'll be right there. Just let me ditch the loser first._ "Neither, actually. I'm getting a ride from Terra's mom. You're walking."

Worry crept into the corners of Lucy's golden gaze. "By myself? But what about-" she glanced over her shoulder and stopped herself short upon meeting the eyes of a group of older boys leaning against the side of their middle school._ They're watching me again…_ When she turned back to her sister Carson was already halfway to her friend's car. "Carson…"

Her older twin rolled her eyes. "Come on Lucy, we're sixth graders now. We can't spend every second together like we're still kids. We've got to go our separate ways sometimes."

"Yeah, but-" the car door slammed, cutting her off and leaving her utterly on her own in the middle of the crowd. "-you don't have to do it alone." She whispered.

--

"You play beautifully." Kurt said, watching her. Her eyes were half closed in concentration, glowing slightly crimson under their lids.

Carson didn't respond, but Lucy looked up at him and smiled kindly. "Yeah, she does, although she won't admit it. She says it's just something she learned to pass the time, but really it's one of the only things that calm her down."

Just then Bobby, Sam, and Rahne burst in, laughing. Not seeing the girl perched on the piano bench, Sam went torpedo, slamming into her and knocking them both to the floor. "Sam!" Kurt cried out, running over to help disentangle them from the floor. "Vatch vhere you're going!"

The boy struggled to his feet and reached out to help Lucy stand. "Sorry! I didn't see you there…" he trailed off. She wasn't moving and her eyes were glowing white.

_Dark rooms. Catalogs. Fishing trips. "Of course you're normal." "My son is not a mutant!" Coal mines. Jet packs. Hellfire. "You'll be safe here." Motocross. Boycrush. Laughtrack. Balloons. _Lucy felt her mind scream through the massive torrent of information, not much sticking but enough grabbing hold to make her feel as though her spinal cord was attempting a getaway through the back of her skull.

Suddenly she came to with a gasp, jerking upright and flailing slightly as she tried to get her bearings. Glancing at her exposed forearms, she quickly tugged her sleeves back over them before letting Sam and Kurt help her to her feet. "Woah. Trippy." She rubbed the back of her head. "You," she said, pointing at Bobby, "Need to quit telling him that you have a supermodel girlfriend. It's driving him crazy. Oh, and if you hadn't gone all cannonball on him you would have won that race. Not sure who 'he' is though. Or why the hell you were racing." She added, addressing Sam. They stared at her, openmouthed. "What?"

"**They think you're in their heads. Which you were, technically. His in any case."** Carson said, dusting off her arms and picking up the trench coat from where it had fallen.

Lucy looked immediately dejected and more than a little embarrassed. "I didn't mean to…"

Carson grinned. **"You still were."**

Bobby raised one finger, trying to catch her attention. "Um, who are you-?"

"This is Lucy!" Kurt butted in, trying to distract from the younger mutants' growing feelings that they were being punked. "And her sister Carson. They're going to be staying vith us tonight, so be sure to make them feel velcome."

"But there's only one of them." Rahne pointed out.

Carson laughed, reveling in their confusion. **"No, there's twelve of us! You just can't see eleven of them because I'm hiding them with my amazing **_**brain skills.**_**"** She brought her pointer fingers up to her forehead and wiggled them at the kids for the last part, grinning.

Lucy brought her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes like she had a headache. "Carson, will you _shut up!_ This is hard enough to explain without you doing things like that!" She shook her head and moved her hands out of the way, shooting the confused onlookers an embarrassed smile. "Sorry about that. Carson tends to spit out any and everything that comes into her head, regardless of how _completely irrelevant_ it may be." She added that last part with a pointed edge that made Carson grin like a maniac. Everyone looked at her like she was one.

---------------

"Sorry about that. Carson likes confusing people. Mostly by telling even more ridiculous stories than the one we're living." Lucy smiled apologetically and Kurt grinned. He had found watching the younger students try to figure out what was going on highly entertaining, at least until Lucy got fed up with Carson and told her off in a language he didn't understand. That probably didn't help her seem any more normal in the others' eyes either.

He led her up the back stairs to the far room on the third floor hallway. "Vhat vere you saying to Carson? Something about… cookies?"

Lucy grinned. "Yes, actually. I was threatening to withhold sugary goodness unless she stopped messing with them. Girl is a sucker for some cookies."

"**They are my only true weakness. Not all cookies though, just Lucy's. She makes a mean **_**moartea neagră**_**."**

Kurt snuck a glance at the girl he was walking with. She was looking off into the distance with a dreamy look in her red eyes. Gold eyes glanced over and translated for him. "_'__Moartea neagră__'._ 'Black death'. It's what she calls my chocolate cookies. I honestly don't know what she sees in them, they're ugly as hell."

"**Then hell tastes fantastic!"** Carson blurted out.

Kurt burst out laughing despite himself, unable to hold in his reaction to her outburst. "S-sorry." He stuttered through his giggles.

Lucy looked slightly bemused. "No problem. I'm just not used to people thinking Carson is _funny_. Usually they think it's just me being insane. Or they think she's part of my mutation. That I developed a second personality." She grinned. "Plus, she's mostly just annoying."

"**Hey!"**

"You are."

"**Am not!"**

"Here we are." The blue-furred boy said quickly, intervening before the two of them could start full-on arguing. He still wasn't quite used to watching their expressions shift the way they did. It was weird. Like videos of two completely different faces were recorded, overlaid and then played forward at the same time. The result was rather unsettling. Kurt pushed the door open and motioned her inside. "This is vhere you vill be staying. I think the Professor had it fixed before you came to."

She walked into the bedroom and looked around in awe. It was way nicer than anything she had ever stayed in before, and about a million miles more so that anything in the past three years. The room was light and airy and had a small balcony that opened out to a view of the back edge of the Institute's property and the water beyond that. Lucy stood still and breathed it in. Even Carson was quiet. "This is _way_ too nice."

Kurt grinned. "You are only going to be here one night; you may as vell enjoy it."

Lucy laughed and walked out onto the balcony, leaning on the railing and looking out. "Yeah, but you're gonna spoil us! We don't get to use a bed when we're out on the road."

He walked over to join her, hopping up and sitting on the bar next to her arms. "Vhere do you usually stay?"

"Oh, here, there, anywhere we can sleep for a few hours without getting rousted by overzealous demon hunters. Mostly we take turns, me and Carson, one sleeps while the other one takes over and moves around. It works pretty well unless the sister in charge gets knocked out, 'cause then there's no one to keep us running from whatever it was that wanted us unconscious. That and the last time I left Carson on her own for more than five hours bad things started happening."

"**The pervtard had it coming."**

"I don't care. It's my body. I want you to _consult_ me before you go around cutting people's fingernails off."

"Vhat?!"

Lucy shook her head. "It's not what it sounds like. Carson was getting bored and ran into this fifty-year-old man trying to rape a twelve-year-old boy in a back alley. She jumped him, tied him up, let the boy go, called the cops, and proceeded to almost surgically remove the outer part of his fingernails while she waited for them to arrive." Lucy paused, considering, and Kurt stared at her, trying to process the information she was feeding him. "So maybe it is what it sounds like. But she had a semi-valid reason for doing it."

"'**Sides, it's not like they wouldn't grow back eventually. They probably just hurt like hell while they were healing. Assuming they didn't get infected while he was in prison…"** Carson's smile when thinking about the pain she had inflicted on the 'pervtard' was almost the same as Lucy's when she was first looking out at the serene landscape stretched out in front of their window. Kurt found that even more unsettling than when their expressions shifted toward the radically different.

---------------

"So what's she like?" Kitty asked, bouncing on her heels as they washed the dishes that night after dinner. Kurt had gone upstairs to find Lucy and Carson before they ate but the girl had been fast asleep and the professor thought it best not to wake them, so no one but himself, Bobby, Sam, and Rahne had had the pleasure of meeting her yet.

Kurt shrugged, not sure what to say. "She's a funny girl. Veird, but not bad."

"Do you think she'll stay?"

"I don't know. It's hard to tell. She seems to really like it here, but Carson kept insisting that they move on, and if anything Lucy agrees vith her."

Jean poked her head into the kitchen, glanced around, and frowned slightly. "Hm. I could've sworn she'd be in here…"

Kitty dried the plate she was working on and set it aside. "You could've sworn who would be here?"

"The new girl. Lucy. She's not in her room."

Kurt glanced over at her. "Are you sure? I was just up there a minute ago and she vas dead asleep."

"I'm sure. The door was unlocked and the window was open-" Kurt dropped what he was doing and disappeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke, reappearing in the guest room with a soft 'bamf'. A light breeze ruffled the curtains, but other than that the room was still and looked for all the world completely untouched.

---------------

Carson breathed the night air deep into her sister's lungs, perched on the top corner of an apartment complex near the edge of the town. Lucy was still sleeping soundly, probably a side effect of having so much strain on her body over the past few days. Carson had been good to go after only three hours of rest. The girl stretched her arms and scanned the city lights, the gold and white glow contradicting the cool silver radiating down from the sky. Lucy wouldn't mind her taking a nighttime jaunt as long as she didn't do something stupid. _Like getting her arm broken._ Carson winced and rubbed the rough plaster cast at the memory. That one had been for the most part unavoidable.

"Get away from me!"

"Where you goin' freak?"

"Yeah, stand and fight like a man!"

"Just leave me alone!"

The girl grinned, her eyes flashing crimson, and followed the echoes over a few block to the back alley behind a few closed storefronts. Three men were backing a fourth, who was shorter than them and shrinking away from their advances, into the corner. Carson pulled her hood up over her head and dropped down between the thugs and their only escape route, allowing a smile to play across Lucy's fanged mouth. This was what she lived for.

This is what she does.

* * *

_In case you couldn't tell, whenever Lucy touches somebody she sees every time anyone had ever lied to them. It only works on a point-to-point basis, so she only sees the lies from the previous time she touched you up until the present. Because that was the first time she made contact with Sam she got EVERYTHING at once, attempting to process which is a lot like trying to drink from a fire hose. The other passive part of her power is that if someone lies, she'll see the truth. (Ex: "Of course I did my homework." She sees what you did instead of doing your homework.) Oh yeah, and if she lies, people think she's telling the truth, no matter what. (Ex: "Your pants are on fire." If you do not douse your trousers,_ you will get burned_.)_

_Really hoping to get some reviews this time around._

_--Dotskip._


	4. Confusion is Contagious

_I still own nothing but the writing, Lucy/Carson, and a few random thugs._

_And I have found that I enjoy writing for Toad more than anyone else, because he has so much wonderful potential and is still so (gosh-darn) angsty! You will be seeing more of him in later chapters, in case I did not insinuate that enough in the writing itself._

"Talking."

_Thinking._

**"Cason talking through Lucy."**

**Carson in Lucy's head.**

_Vorbind / Gânduri în limba română. (Speaking / Thinking in Romanian {or German})_

* * *

**Demon Blood: So Strange**

Chapter Four -- Confusion is Contagious

Kurt wandered into the kitchen to find that Jean had taken over his spot at the sink and was talking with Kitty in conspiratorial tones. They both looked up as he sat down in a chair at the table, looking vacant and confused. "She's _gone._" He said, and he was right. The strange girl they had picked up the night before was nowhere to be found.

Jean and Kitty shared a meaningful look. Kitty walked over and placed a hand on the blue demon's shoulder. "I'm sure she'll be fine. It sounded like she was taking pretty good care of herself without our help."

"Ja, _before_ she broke her arm. I'm vorried about her. Mostly about Lucy. Carson just seems, unstable." He ran a hand through his hair, thinking. "She even said something about kidnapping her if they stayed here." He glanced up in time to catch the back end of another shared look being passed over his head. "Vhat? Vhat is it?"

Kitty giggled. "Kurt, don't you, like, already have a girlfriend?"

"_Vas?!_" Kurt jumped up, startled. "No! I mean, ja, I do! I don't like Lucy like that, I'm just vorried about her, that's all!"

Jean joined the ghost in laughing at Kurt's reaction. "If you say so."

"Yeah Kurt. We all know how you like 'funny girls'." Kitty said with a grin.

He smacked one hand to his forehead. "I just meant that she's a strange vone! She has another person living in her head, how is that not veird?"

"Just uncommon, Kurt." Storm noted, walking into the kitchen. The girls immediately toned their teasing down and went back to the dishes. "Although I supposed one could call Lucy's relationship with Carson… 'weird'."

"Exactly! They fight constantly!"

Ororo shook her head. "Actually, I was referring to the detail that they are, in fact, sisters; not alternate personalities. The Professor tracked down their information by searching for female twins in approximately their age range. I'm on my way to speak with them now, to offer them a permanent home here at the institute."

Kurt sighed. "Vell you're a little late for that. They're gone, most likely by Carson's initiative."

The weather witch raised an eyebrow. "Gone?"

"Ja. Gone. Poof. Out the vindow. _Futsch(1)._"

Kitty giggled. "Yeah, and Kurt's mad 'cause he never go to tell her he likes her."

"I do not!" He protested irritably.

"We'd better tell the Professor." The woman said, crossing her arms.

"Tell me what, Ororo?" Professor Xavier rolled into the room.

Kurt spoke for her. "Lucy and Carson are gone."

He brought his hands to a peak in front of his mouth and frowned. "Really? Did you see them leave?"

"No, but they are not in their room, and I cannot find them anyvhere."

"Hm. We'll have to inquire as to their whereabouts in the morning. And yes, Kurt, I do believe they will be returning." He added, answering the blue boy's unasked question. "While Carson appears to be the more forceful of the two of them, she does show a certain respect for her sister. I believe this stems from the fact that the current residency of her mind was originally Lucy's body alone. She will not simply run off without telling her first, for the same reason she allows Lucy to do most of their talking. She considers the time she spends being Lucy time on loan. Lucy wanted to stay, so she'll always bring her back."

"And you can tell all this from just vone look in her head?" Kurt said incredulously.

The Professor chuckled. "No, no. In fact, most of what I know of the two of them is more from their interactions than their thoughts. Their minds are far too jumbled to get a clear picture that way."

"But do you think she'll, like, come back?" Kitty piped up from the sink where she and Jean were finishing up.

"I should hope so. I believe we can do more for those girls than either of them realize."

----------

This was not Todd Tolensky's night.

Or week.

Or month.

Or _year._

Come to think of it, things hadn't gone in the mutant's favor in so long he would only stop just short of saying this wasn't his _life._ Because, y'know, that wouldn't make any sense.

Todd walked slowly, making an outstanding effort to keep his legs moving in the 'normal' fashion, one foot coming down in front of the other in an alternating pattern instead of both at once. It was annoying, but not as many people glared openly at him when they couldn't see him hopping or catching flies with his tongue. It was his equivalent of that blue X-man's image inducer. They each had their own, all mutants did. Their own ways of pretending to be human, pretending they fit in.

It was like a game. _See how long you can go without someone calling you a freak. Make it an hour and you get one insult with no time penalty. Survive a whole day and you could win the grand prize!_ Todd smiled dryly. He was up to five minutes, but that was only because he hadn't made eye contact with anyone since he left the store. The package of cigarettes Wanda had sent him for was clutched in one of his hands, both of which were shoved deep into his pockets. The clerk hadn't even thought to card him, assuming from tint of his teeth and the light cloud of stench that followed him around that he was not only of age, but had been smoking for a while. The boy shook his head, as though someone were actually there to disbelieve his denial. A young couple moved to the other side of the street to avoid walking too close to him. _Well, they didn't say anything, so no penalties._ Seven minutes and counting.

The box felt wrong in his hand. Ironically enough, the thing he hated most about the cancer sticks was the way the smoke smelled. Todd didn't understand how anyone could smoke, knowingly filling their lungs with tar and who knew what else. He would take his flirtations with death unadulterated, thank you very much. Letting go of the cardboard in his pocket for a moment, he rubbed the bandages on his wrists. The still-healing cuts were starting to itch.

Nine and a half minutes. If he made it to ten it would be a new personal record for the week, not counting the few hours a day he was asleep.

"Hey _freak!_"

So much for that.

"Toad! Hey! Tolensky!"

Todd hunched his shoulders further and lost concentration on his footing for a moment, stumbling forward before regaining his balance and resuming his forced gait. "Lemme 'lone, yo." He muttered, idly hoping his harassers would give up and go away.

Someone hit him squarely between the shoulder blades and he fell, catching himself just before his face made itself very closely acquainted with the pavement. "Hey freak, you owe us some cash." Todd got his feet back under him but didn't rise from a crouch, looking up at the trio of boys from a toad-like squat. "We know you swiped our wallets, so just hand them over and nobody gets hurt."

He stood, still bent, and started walking again. "I didn't steal nothin'."

One boy tripped him and another pushed him into the side of the building closest to them. "Come on mutie, we know you did." They each too one of his arms and started pulling him toward a nearby alley. None of the people walking by saw anything. As far as they were concerned, these were just a few boys taking a late-night walk with a friend. Down a back street. With no street lights or overlooking windows. Damn.

Panicking a little, he started to protest. "But I didn't take nothin', bro, I swear!" Todd instantly regretted his choice of words, the ringleader's face contorting in a sneer of hatred as he shoved him to the ground.

"'Bro'? You think I'm your 'bro', freak?"

"N-nah man, just an expression. Look I don't got any money, can't you just let me go?" he asked with a half-hearted not-quite-a-smile.

Boss's sneer turned into a smirk and he tested his knuckles against the palm of his hand. "Sorry, no can do."

"But I-" the boy's fist collided with the side of Todd's face at the same time that his buddies let go of his arms, the force knocking Todd into the brick wall at the rear of the offshoot. He stumbled and leaned against the barrier for support. "Don't want trouble." He muttered. One of the boys landed a knee to his stomach and he fell forward, gasping for breath. His powerful tongue didn't do him much good when he was choking on it.

They were laughing. "Come on DJ, it's your turn, get one in!" _Kick the toad, win a prize._ Todd looked up and DJ's shoe made contact with the underside of his chin, slamming him back against the wall. Stars exploded behind his eyes as he slid down the bricks, trying to remember how to stand upright.

"Nice one!"

"Did you see his face?"

"Yeah, I- aah!" The sentence was cut off by an uncharacteristically high-pitched scream and a loud thud. Todd blinked and sat up, peering through the darkness and his foot-induced headache to see what was going on.

A figure in a long, brown, slightly singed-looking trench coat landed a kick to the ringleader's stomach, expertly bringing a leg to his knees to sweep him off his feet. The motion continued into a kick-flip to one of his friends' solar plexus with a follow through to a punch to the last one's left eye. Two of the boys ran off, shouting something about freaks of nature, and the figure heaved Boss to his feet. "Get moving." Todd would have laughed if it didn't hurt his face. The man absolutely _hauled ass_ to get out of there.

The figure quickly scaled the fire escape and sped off across the roof of the building. Its rescue-ee stood and watched it disappear before wandering back out onto the street. He could feel the beginnings of a bruise forming on his cheek, but he simply checked his pocket for the cigarettes and headed home. _Whoever they were, they obviously didn't know who they were saving._

It took Todd another fifteen minutes to walk home and not one word, degrading or otherwise, was spoken to him the entire time, but he wasn't counting anymore. "Close the door Toad, you're letting all the bugs in!" He looked up at a very irritated Lance and realized he had been standing, motionless, in the open doorway for the better part of a minute. He pushed the door shut and hopped up the stairs, the rockhead pushing him a little to keep them from actually touching.

He made his way down the hall to Wanda's room and gingerly knocked on the door. "_What._"

"Um, I brought you the-"

"Shove them under the door." She said curtly, cutting him off. Todd hesitated, then slowly complied. The only reason he did these things for her was because he never got to see her anymore. Wanda spent all her time not at school holed up in her room practicing magic. Every time she asked him to run an errand for her he did it in the hopes of catching a glimpse of her in one of her oh-so-rare good moods, but each completion only left him with another disappointment.

He slouched into his room and flopped down on the edge of the dirty mattress that served as his bed with an inaudible sigh. He pulled a white and red cloth out from under his pillow and carefully unwrapped the small blade from within its folds, watching the way the moonlight filtered in from between the broken blinds and danced across the always sharp edge in his hands. It was the only thing in the room not covered in a layer of filth or debris. His mind tripped over the form of his rescuer and his grip tightened. _Whoever they were, they didn't know I'm not worth saving._

----------

Carson hopped from one balcony to the next up the side of the institute, finally coming to the one outside her borrowed room and landing on the railing in a gargoyle-esque crouch. Lucy was still sleeping soundly.

_BAMF!_

"_Vhere have you been?!"_

"**Whatthe-"** Carson pinwheeled backwards and all but fell off her perch as a blue teenage boy appeared out of thin air directly in front of her. She grabbed the bar and one of her feet slid off, making her overbalance and land chin-first on the ground at his feet.** "How the frack did you **_**do**_** that?!"**

"Vhere vere you?!"

"**Did you just teleport?!"**

"Don't change the subject!"

"_**Trebuie să fie o ea a fost cautati!**_**"** She exclaimed, far too excited to be bothered with English.

Kurt, irritated, responded in turn. _Two can play that game._ "_Warum haben Sie sich verlassen, ohne jemandem etwas zu sagen?! __Wohin gingen Sie?!_"

Carson blanked out, momentarily forgetting what she was doing as the foreign words rolled off her. **"What?"**

He crossed his arms stubbornly. "I'll translate mine if you'll translate yours."

"**Deal."**

"I vas asking vhy you left vithout telling anyone. Vhere you vent. You?"

She grinned, glad for the opportunity to avoid answering his questions. **"You must be the one she was looking for."**

He blinked. "Vhat?"

"**Lucy. She's been looking for someone for the past three years, saying they should be able to help us. I think that someone is you." **Carson looked extremely pleased with herself and breezed past him into the room, sitting down on the bed and stretching upward.

Kurt shook his head. "I really don't know vhat you're talking about."

The rust-haired girl grinned. **"Neither do I. She never told me. Something about not getting my hopes up. But I'm in her head, so she couldn't hide **_**everything**_** from me. I know she needs a teleporter for whatever it is she's got planned, and so far the only one I've met is you, **_**înger de meu iad**_**.(2)"**

"Vhat?"

"**Goodnight!"**

"Vait! Vhat are you talking-" The girl fell sideways onto the pillow, asleep. "-about?" Lucy was curled against the mattress, not quite snoring but sleeping soundly. It was as though she had never left at all.

Carson grinned inside her sister's head and settled down to join her in sleep. **Sorry **_**înger**_**, but you don't get to find out anything before I do, and neither of us is learning anything before Sleeping Beauty here joins the land of the living.**

Kurt stared at the sleeping form in utter confusion for a full five minutes before giving up and porting out to inform the Professor that their wayward guest had returned home.

_

* * *

- (1) - Futsch. -- Gone._

_- (2) - înger de meu iad. -- angel of my hell._

_I hope you all are now as confused and intrigued as I set out to make you at the beginning of this chapter! I swear, more stuff will start making sense soon. (Although I will answer the individual questions [as long as they're not too revealing] of anyone who wants more information on something.)_

_And I really want to give Todd a hug. And a bath. But mostly a hug._

_Reviews are GREATLY APPRECIATED!_

_--Dotskip_


	5. Deoxyribo

_Shiny new chapter for those of you who survived Monday and still retain your higher brain functions. I commend you on your perseverance._

_I own only Carson, Lucy, a few nameless incidentals (maybe. I don't actually know. They are, after all, nameless.), and my ideas. And the angst. I own that too._

"Talking"

_Thinking._

**"Carson talking."**

_Stopfen auf deutsch. -- Stuff in German._

* * *

**Demon Blood: So Strange**

Chapter 5 -- Deoxyribo

"What are you going to do with him?" She asked warily, holding her sleeping child closer to her chest. The little boy snuffled in his sleep and snuggled closer to his mother's warmth, blissfully oblivious to his surroundings. A cold wind whipped around the young woman's ankles, tearing at the corners of her cloak with the ferocity of the impending blizzard that was bearing down on them. Clouds raced each other across the darkened night sky, obscuring the millions of stars that should have been visible this far away from civilization. The only man-made structures in sight were the crumbling stone mansion she stood in front of and the swinging bridge a half-mile back down the road. Another hooded figure stood between her and shelter.

The grey-haired man's mouth smiled at the picture of familial affection, but his eyes remained stony. "I'm simply going to bring him into his full potential, to bring his heritage to the forefront of his genetics and enhance his abilities."

The woman's eyes narrowed. "No. I will not allow it. He is _human_; I've had his DNA tested myself."

"And I've had his blood tested myself."

"You _what?!_" she hissed, fury edging into her voice. Her son squirmed against her and she loosened her tightening grip on him, rocking him slightly until he settled down again. "I never gave my permission for that!"

He chuckled at her anger. "Permissions aside, the findings were quite… enlightening. But you already knew that, didn't you?" The woman looked away. "That's what I thought. Your son, while his genes are fully mutant, has a most unusual blood type, and it is anything but human. Demon, I believe is the correct term, yes?"

The red haired woman glared at him. "You had no right."

The man stepped forward to place a hand on her shoulder but she moved away. "I understand your frustration-"

"No you don't!" She exploded and advanced on him, teeth bared. "This is my son. My _son!_ And I will never allow you to play games with his life, no matter who his-" she choked and looked away.

"Who his father is?" The man offered with a smile.

He glare settled on him once again. "Yes. It doesn't matter. He will _not_ be one of your experiments." She turned on her heel and strode away, her coat catching the wind and billowing out behind her like the cape her master wore. The child in her arms made a small squeaking sound and turned over, opening a pair of deep brown eyes to look at her. He giggled and held his arms up, twining his five fingers into the front of her cloak. She looked down at him and bit her lip, watching the pair of tiny, sharp fangs that glinted in the moonlight whenever he smiled. Her hurried stride slowed. "Hello my little one." She whispered. He giggled again and she reached out to touch his soft blue skin with one finger.

The gray-haired man approached her from behind and stood a respectful distance away. Watching the pair closely. "I can help him, you know. I can give him something he'll never have otherwise."

She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes hard. "What could you possible offer him that I cannot."

"A normal life." She looked back down at her son, who was now trying to grab and hold onto his toes without much success. "I see the way you look at him. You know he doesn't have you ability to blend in with his surroundings. He will grow up hated, scorned for what he looks like. For what _you_ contributed to his DNA, not his father."

She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill over onto the child she held. "And you, you think you can help him?" she asked bitterly.

"Yes." His hand came down on her shoulder. "I know I can."

Mystique pulled away from his touch and walked as quickly as she could away from the castle on the hill that Magneto had converted into his laboratory. The man smiled harshly after her. She would be back.

---------------

One of the only reasons Todd would stop just short of saying this wasn't his life, other than the fact that that MADE NO SENSE, was that it was his life. Things hadn't always been this bad. He blamed the bald guy in the wheelchair for where he was now. If it weren't for the Professor's 'vision of the future', Todd Tolensky might still exist somewhere other than just inside his own head. The other Brotherhood members had taken his version of their potential to heart, and even Lance had resigned himself to being the bad guy, an ending he had been trying to avoid ever since he had met the infamous Kitty Pryde. Fred was more than a little excited about being considered really evil, not just an overweight joke. As far as Todd was concerned, his friend didn't have a weight problem. It was just an unavoidable side effect of his power, like Todd's too-long legs and the strange discoloration of his teeth. For the huge teen it was probably just a relief, having the insurance that five years or so into the future he was still going to have people around who didn't laugh about how he looked. He was still going to be part of a team.

A team.

What team?

Lance was angry all the time, Wanda spent ever spare minute practicing magic in a frenzied attempt to accelerate her powers even further than where the vision had placed them, Todd was pretty sure she was losing her mind in the process but every time he tried to talk to her she hexed him off his feet or slammed a door in his face, and Pietro- well, Pietro was a jerk, but that was nothing new. The white-haired boy had been so sure they were going somewhere with all this that Professor X's confirmation had only affected his smugness, not the effort he put into cultivating his powers. And he brushed off Wanda's precariously balanced psyche as just another mood-swing-like phase she was going through.

The team was still there, but Todd missed his friends. He especially missed his am-not-and-never-will-be-you-girlfriend, who hadn't spoken to him face-to-face in over a month. He had stopped making up nicknames for her a long time ago, when she stopped responding to 'Wanda' unless you said it several times with increasing volume. Now she only answered to "Scarlet" unless there were several feet of space and a wall between her and whoever she was talking to. Which, considering the level of apathy everyone else displayed for her well-being, was him and him alone. And he was becoming increasingly less inclined to attempt conversation with ever harsh response and door to the face it got him. But he didn't _want_ to stop trying.

He didn't want to lose everything he had gained so suddenly two years before.

But...

It felt like he already had.

Everyone was getting stronger and coming into their own and pulling away from the hub of "friendship" he had found himself a part of and he didn't want to give it up but the more he tried to keep it together the more it seemed to fall apart.

And yeah, he blamed the bald guy for that.

---------------

"She said Lucy had been looking for me." Kurt said, perched on the kitchen counter and conversing with Kitty over the general commotion of the kitchen. It was breakfast time and everyone was frantically trying to get some food before they had to high-tail it off to one of their various levels of school.

The girl he was talking to shrugged. "Maybe she, like, wants to break into a bank or something."

Kurt laughed and shook his head, using his tail to get something off a higher shelf for one of the younger students. "No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that is more up Carson's alley."

"Right, the 'unstable' one." Kitty giggled. "Wouldn't it be weird if the Professor was wrong? I mean, if Carson really was just a part of Lucy's imagination?"

**"Well I doubt that."** The girl jumped about six inches and dropped the bowl she was holding, a four-fingered hand catching it before it crashed onto the countertop. Carson handed Kitty back the dish and continued as though her sudden appearance hadn't caused any surprise. **"I'm pretty sure I would know if I didn't exist. Except, maybe if Lucy_ lied_ me into existence I wouldn't be able to tell the difference."**

"H-how did you do that?!"

The girl looked at her unplastered hand and then back to the ghost. **"I put my hand under it and closed my fingers when it hit."**

She waved her hands in front of her face, clearly flustered. "Not that! How did you get there without me noticing?"

**"I… walked? I dunno, honestly I thought I was being pretty loud."**

"Hey…" one of the youngest mutants poked her arm and she looked down at him. Her strange appearance was beginning to draw people's attention. She was still wearing her trench coat, but the hood was down and it was no longer belted at the waist, so her oddly formed legs and tail could easily be seen. "You look like Kurt!"

**"I do?"** She looked over at the blue teenager and broke out in a huge, fangy grin. **"Hey! I do! Lucy does anyway."**

"How is Lucy anyvay?" He asked warily, her unnaturally red eyes unnerving him.

**"Still sleeping!"** Carson offered cheerfully. **"I don't really blame her. The girl's been on the move longer than should be possible, even with a backup generator at the ready."**

"And the generator vould be… you?"

**"Yep! But it's complicated and I'm too lazy to explain it, so that's all you get! It's got something to do with a split consciousness and… bilateral neural wiring or something." **The same boy as before tugged at her tri-pronged tail and she jerked it out of his grasp, shooting him a slightly disturbing smile that got him to back off _fast._ **"Please don't pull the tail,"** she said brightly. **"I'm just borrowing it."**

Kitty leaned on the counter and addressed her directly. "So you're, like, Lucy's sister?"

**"No, I'm her evil clone who was brought into being to create havoc and rain down chaos on the earth from the very fabric of the universe itself!"** She grinned.

Kurt looked just as confused as Kitty did. "Vhat?"

Carson rolled her eyes. **"Yes, I'm her sister. Older twin by about ten minutes. Our DNA is identical, but Lucy got the demon blood, so I was always the 'normal' one. Not sure how that makes sense, but it obviously did at some point in the timeline. I had my own body up until a little less than three years ago when some pan-dimensional hell thingy stole it and I ended up in Lucy's skull. Since then we've figured out that only one of us needs to be awake at any given time in order for her body to function and although sister dearest doesn't trust me as far as she can currently throw me I usually end up being the one in control anyway. Clear enough?"**

Kitty held up her hands again, this time to stay the flood of highly illogical information being thrown at her. "Woah, woah. Pan-dimensional _what?_"

"'Hell thingy'." The girl said, her eyes' color fading to a dull orange-gold. "Carson doesn't know what to call it and really neither do I, so we're sticking with that for now."

**"Yay! You're awake!" **She chirped, eyes sparking momentary scarlet.

"Yeah, whatever. Did you kill anyone while I was out?"

**"Nope!"**

"Great. I know you're not lying and I _still_ don't believe you."

Kitty leaned closer to Kurt and whispered in his ear. "Do they always do that?"

"I- I do not know. I think so."

"Um…" Lucy rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Where are we?"

"The kitchen. Vhy? Couldn't you tell from Carson's thoughts?"

She shook her head. "Nah, the way we interact inside each other's minds is a little more complicated than that."

**"Oh! That reminds me! Fuzz-butt over there is a teleporter."**

"Really?!" she squeaked. Carson laughed and she glared and looked embarrassed and pleased with herself and angry and ecstatic and irritated and relieved and that many reactions and emotions on one face made it impossible to tell what was going on in their head. She coughed nervously and their expressions settled. "Sorry about that. But you really can teleport? Carson's not just screwing with me again?"

"Vell…" He grinned and _bamf_ed over behind her. "Maybe."

She spun around and hugged him for no apparent reason. "Sweet!"

When she let go Kitty looked both confused and irritated. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything!" She said happily. "See, there's this demon god of chaos who-"

"Anyone who needs a ride, I'm leaving now!" Scott called, poking his head into the kitchen. It had emptied out except for the high school students, who quickly, and loudly, scrambled to grab their backpacks and get out the door. "That means you too, guys. The Professor said you can't miss any more class this semester."

Kitty pouted and Kurt protested. "But Scott!"

The older boy wagged his finger at them, grinning. "No buts, Kurt, Profs orders."

The brown-haired girl sighed dramatically and grabbed her books from the table, phasing through it on her way to the door. Carson tilted her head to the side, watching her go. **"Cool."**

Kurt grinned apologetically at the girl and followed suit. "Look on the bright side!" He said with a hopeful smile. "Now you at least have to stay until ve get back!"

"But-"

"_Tschüss!_" He called over his shoulder, not giving her a chance to protest before porting out.

Carson, with her infinite wisdom, stared after him in utter confusion. **"They cheated!"**

"It's called school, dear."

**"It's called _cheating_. At _life_."**

"Shove it, girl. Let's just go find someone we can talk to. I need to explain this to another human being or my head might explode."

* * *

_More angstosity from Todd, more confusion from the twins. A little bit of background on how Kurt ties into the actual plot of the story (and yes, the story DOES have a plot, it's just strange and convoluted and is taking a long time to set up because of frakkin' HOMEWORK)._

_I hate homework. It's evil. And... yeah, evil._

_And I'm going to try to update every week, but not necessarily weekly, although I might curl up and die (and therefore not update at all) without the comments from my readers whom I hold so dear. [Psst. This is the part where you review because I've been asking very nicely and love you all with tremendous amounts of awesometude.]_

_--Dotskip._


End file.
